Barry M Denim

Picture this scenario that I was met with yesterday …

My current manicure is ready to come off. I have about half an hour before I am due to receive a delivery that needs to be stored in my garage. The garage has a fiddly lock that typically wrecks my nails anyway, even if they’re dry. After that, I need to go straight out and visit a potential new client. I cannot bear to ever go without anything on my nails (not least because they are rather stained from so much polishing!)

This was what I was faced with this morning. I had precisely half an hour to do a new manicure. What to do?

I’d read on other blogs that Barry M Denim is a one-coater. They were absolutely right. I applied a quick base coat, then just one coat of Denim, a matt blue with a subtle silver shimmer. Finally, after a quick-drying top coat, my nails were looking pristine – and with time to spare!

Denim dries matt and really does look like you’re wearing denim on your nails. But because I had a delivery coming, I wanted to protect my manicure a bit, and also ensure that it was dry. So I top-coated it. It did look lovely before the top coat though, and I’ll wear it like that again one day.

There were two bonuses with all this. Denim is one of my untrieds – so that’s another one off the list. And the garage lock was kind this time – no nail damage was sustained 🙂

Barry M Denim – with top coat

I also got to try out my new light tent and lights for my photographs. My mobile phone didn’t like the lighting at all though, and the screen constantly flickered. It couldn’t capture an image at all without leaving vertical stripes across it.

So I dusted off my trusty DSLR – a Canon EOS 400D. It’s a lovely camera, but it’s been somewhat neglected over the past few years because of the ease of just pulling out a camera phone whenever I want to take a picture – even on holidays sometimes.

I need a bit more practice to sort out the best manual settings for use with the lighting and tent, but I’m fairly happy with my first attempt and using the DSLR certainly gives much truer colours.

Comments

As for naked nails, mine have been naked since Saturday. Sitting here staring at a couple dozen shades of green trying to decide what I wanna do with them. Upside to naked nails is I’m moisturizing the nail bed heavily. I stopped in at my local beauty supply to pick up some polish thinner and the clerk was like “OMG, I’ve never seen you without nail polish on. Your nails really are real!” Made me smile.

I’ve been floating around an idea in my head for a DIY textured mani. Supposed to have a big snow storm tomorrow so I’m gonna have time to play and perfect it.

Snow hasn’t started yet but when it does I’ll be enjoying it with a steaming hot cup of cocoa (spiked) 🙂 Still waiting for the flakes to start flying.

I’ve been using Beauty Secrets base coat for years. Do you have access to Sally Beauty Supply on your end of the pond? They also sell a great product for whitening called Bubble White. I’ve used it a couple of times and it has even removed henna stains. Might be worth a try.

About me

I'm Claire Kerr and I'm a UK nails blogger. I've only been addicted to nail polish since 2012. Some kind of mid-life crisis turned me from a tomboy into a girly girl!

I had been posting pics of my manicures to Facebook, really as a way of documenting them for myself, but I was filling up my timeline with the photos and most of my friends weren't interested. So I started this blog instead!